Breeding and Management (1945)
04/04/2006 ( Beef, Land )The following paper was presented to The Hill Cattle Conference in Oban on Tuesday 27th February 1945
Mr. DUNCAN M. STEWART (Ben Challum Ltd.) : This paper which I have been asked to read will deal with the breeding and management of hill cattle. By hill cattle I mean a herd of breeding cows kept on a hill farm and wholly outwintered. That is all I will deal with.
This is the first occasion upon which I have read a paper – for the simple reason that I have never been asked to do so before, and I rather shrink from the task, not only on this account but chiefly because this subject is one upon which we are all in the kindergarten stage; we are groping in the dark to a large extent, and it may be many years before we learn our jobs. I think we all feel that.
What I have to say may sound commonplace to some, but it is as far as I have travelled in this subject; and I think it is a very important subject because upon it depends, in my opinion, the whole future economy of our Scottish hills.
“Breeding” and “Management” may to some people appear synonymous, so may I take under the first part of the title a subject upon which I feel a great deal of our future depends. I refer here to competition from overseas with what we produce. We all know the high quality of Argentine beef, produced as it is entirely from herds of pure-bred Shorthorn, Aberdeen-Angus and Hereford. In the Argentine there is no indiscriminate crossing with dairy breeds, in fact there is no crossing of any kind in these breeds. Any dairy herds that exist are situated on the expensive land round about the few large cities. Most of the big herds have been graded up from the native cattle, but they are now absolutely pure Shorthorn, Aberdeen-Angus and Hereford. That is what we have to compete with from the Argentine.
Argentine beef, however, is chilled beef and, of course, any home-fed product will always have the advantage over it for this reason.
There will be competition from other countries such as Australia and Africa; but their products, even when improved-and they are being improved, of course – will never exceed in quality those of the Argentine. Climatically, the Argentine has a great advantage over those other countries.
What is the competition that we have to face in this home-killed product? At the moment supplies, in the form of cattle on the hoof, come from Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State, and when the war is over they will probably again come from Canada. To appreciate the importance of this competition one must study the livestock policies of these three countries. In Northern Ireland the eagerness of the small farmer to own a good pedigree bull has been encouraged, by a very generous premium scheme which has also assisted the breeders of pedigree stock to purchase some of the best of our bulls of the beef breeds from this side of the Channel. There is no crossing of beef and dairy breeds in Northern Ireland. The commercial Irish cow, as we know it, is sired by a Shorthorn bull of Scotch or beef parentage whose dam has been milk recorded and has qualified and whose sire is also from a qualified cow.
In Ireland such a bull – I am talking about Shorthorns – bred on a foundation of Scotch parentage is termed a double dairy bull. Some people I know think that these double dairy bulls are dairy Shorthorns; they are not. They are Scotch-bred Shorthorns of Scotch parentage, but the cows from which they are bred are milk recorded and qualified in Ireland. The judging of these bulls in the two main shows in Ireland is conducted on the same lines as we judge our bulls at Perth, and you are told, when you go to judge in Ireland, by the committee responsible that although you are judging dairy classes you are to judge them as beef cattle. I was once judging with an Englishman at Dublin and we decided that he should judge the cows and I the bulls because there was no agreement; he thought that judging dairy cattle meant judging them on dairy lines, but in Ireland they will not have it, you have to judge all your Shorthorns in that country on the same lines as you judge beef cattle here. That is their policy.
Can it be wondered at, therefore, that with the best Aberdeen-Angus, Hereford and Beef Shorthorn bulls being used almost exclusively in Northern Ireland their feeding stores have improved greatly in recent years? You have only to go to Perth, which is the market that I know best, to see the great improvement that has come over these Irish cattle in the last number of years. There is no doubt that they are very good store cattle.
In the Irish Free State the situation is similar but competition from that part of the country will be more severe.
Their premium scheme has been more ambitious in as much as they have paid higher prices for bulls in this country and, so far as Shorthorns are concerned, and also I think for Aberdeen-Angus and Herefords, they have paid four figure prices on more than one occasion. If you add to this the potentially -higher standard of the cattle population of the Irish Free State, the fact that there are eight times the number of cattle in the Irish Free State than there is in Northern Ireland, you will see what this competition means in comparison. From Canada may come beef on the hoof, but beef bred on beef lines from the finest herds of pure-bred Aberdeen-Angus, Herefords and Shorthorns.
All this, as I have said, may seem to be very far away from cattle in the beautiful seclusion of our Bens and Glens in this part of the country, but to my mind it is not. We cannot and must not forget this formidable competition – competition which will render all our efforts fruitless if we do not plan on proper lines. Remember that it is just as easy, and at the moment easier, for the East Coast feeder of cattle to go into the Perth market, or some other big market on a Friday and buy fifty or one hundred Irish cattle, first quality beasts, and beasts that he knows will do well, than it is for him to buy home-bred beasts.
How then are we going to breed the right kind of cattle in the hills of Scotland to meet this competition? By one method and by one method only-by trying to produce a quick maturing beast of pure beef breeding; one whose ancestors have been bred for beef and who has no connection whatsoever with the dairy. I know that some people will contend that a touch of dairy on the dam’s side – perhaps a cross Highland cow served by an Ayrshire bull, a heifer calf kept and put back to the hill and then served with a Shorthorn bull – will give them a better calf at weaning, and so it may, because that cow may have more milk than the cow bred on beef lines. But what is the feeder to say when he has had that beast in his possession for a month or two? He will say they are very hard, their whole frame is wrongly built up; they are not beef cattle, in other words.
I say, why should we in this country mix beef and dairy, as we have been doing, when the greatest beef-producing country in the world – the Argentine – will have none of it? And why should we fall behind the Irish Free State? No. I maintain we must breed for beef from beef and from beef only. In Scotland we are fortunate in having two sound, hardy breeds of cattle in the Galloway and Highland. As a foundation, both of these are good but neither is as quick to mature as we would like. As a feeding animal, the cross with the Shorthorn bull of Scotch or beef type is better but still not good enough to compete with the best which our competitors can produce. The females from this cross with the Shorthorn are without doubt as hardy as their dams. Some people may say that the cross cannot stand the wet so well, but the difference is so very small that I think we can say that this cross of the Galloway and Highland with the Shorthorn is just as sound. These cross Galloways and cross Highlands should form the basis of all our hill breeding cattle.
The next stage will be: What bull are we to use? Some might prefer to use the Aberdeen-Angus bull on both breeds, but I would recommend an Aberdeen-Angus bull on the cross Galloways and a Shorthorn on the cross Highland. My reason for advising this is that I am a great believer in close breeding. You cannot breed any cattle of pedigree stock successfully unless you are going on one line. If you try to find a complete outcross, you cannot do it. I maintain that in breeding ordinary commercial cattle this close breeding can be made to play a part. For that reason I say use your Aberdeen Angus bull on your cross Galloway cow, because the Galloway and the Angus have a very close connection in as much as they both appear in the original Polled Herd Book. Therefore, use your Aberdeen Angus on the cross Galloway cow, and with your cross Highland use another Shorthorn. Go further than that; if you are breeding the original cross Highland heifers yourself, use a half brother to the bull by which those heifers are sired, and by that method of close breeding you will fix a type and accentuate the Shorthorn characteristics, and, of course, by doing that you will get your quick maturing animal that will appeal to the feeder. That is all that I will say upon what may be termed the standard breeds and crosses of cattle for the hills.
Some people have suggested that a new breed should be evolved, one which could be bred pure without any crossing whatsoever. Now, this would mean a type approximating to the cross Highland or the Blue-Grey cross Galloway. But why should we remain constant by breeding such types of cattle when by using an Aberdeen Angus or a Shorthorn bull we can hasten the maturing qualities in the calves? So, for that reason, I do not altogether recommend the establishment of a fixed breed which would have to approximate to the Blue-Grey or the cross Highland. We have plenty of foundation cows, if we only put our minds to it, in the Highland breed and the Galloway breed.
I am told that the Hereford can stand up to hill conditions, and we intend to go on trying them. As a pure breed, I do not like them myself but when crossed with the Shorthorn or even the Aberdeen-Angus, they seem to appeal to the feeder nowadays although at one time there was slight prejudice against them. The advantage of the Hereford for hill conditions would be this, that if you had an established herd of Hereford cows you could pick your 30 or 40 best cows and put them to a Hereford bull and breed your own replacements; but, as I say, Herefords are cattle which I know very little about and we are only in an experimental stage with this breed.
I am also told that commercial Irish heifers are being run under hill conditions in the North and are proving satisfactory. I have no experience of such a practice.
Before dealing with the second part of the title to this Paper I will touch on a point which should perhaps be included under the heading “Breeding” as it bears on the season for mating. It is generally recognised that all cows run wholly on hill pasture sometimes miss having a calf in their second season and perhaps again later in life. Heifers after their first calf are the worst offenders and generally come in season very late, if at all. I think we have all had this experience. Cows that come to the calving in very poor condition may also offend. I feel that we should not tamper too much with nature. It is perhaps, nature’s way of allowing these beasts to regain their strength, although I admit that in some cases the fault may be due to a mineral deficiency, probably phosphatic.
I suggest, however, that to increase the productivity of the herd, any cows that are not settled in calf by the middle of August, when the bulls are taken away from such cattle, should be put back to the bull again from mid-December to, say, the end of February. Calves would then be born from the latter half of September to early December and if cows had been running yeld all summer they would be in good hard condition and able to carry their calves through the winter with, of course, extra hay. They would need more feeding ; at the same time the calf would learn to pick at the hay and by spring-time he would be able to rustle for himself, he could get the advantage of the young grass, and by the end of July he might be more or less independent of his mother’s milk. The cow would naturally, in the ordinary course of nature, dry up, she would put on condition in August and September, the calf would not lose condition and he would then come to the market at the end of September fit to make at least £20, and probably £25, if he were a good calf. The cow should come to the bull with the other cows in June and July and have a calf the following spring. By that method I think we are doing something to increase the productivity of these herds at very little extra cost, only the cost of a little extra feeding in winter. I may say we have done that in Glen Lochay ; we have had calves born there and they have been very satisfactory, the only difficulty we had was that we did not cut them until early spring and it was a heavy day before we got the job finished.
And now let me turn to the question of Management. There can be no hard and fast rules laid down under this heading because conditions of climate, vegetation and shelter all have a very marked bearing upon it. There are, I believe, areas on our West Coast which are ideal for the establishment of large herds of out-wintered breeding cattle, where the climate is mild in most winters -this has been an exceptional one with little snow or frost-and where cows have unlimited range over rough grazing at a low altitude: Such cattle may to a large extent be left to themselves and may not even need a supplementary ration of hay during the early spring months. I have heard of cases where they have come through without anything; but it is when we go into our Bens and Glens in Central Scotland that we meet conditions which call for more management.
I believe that there is land in our Scottish Highlands which, through want of proper mixed grazing for years, has become so dead that cattle will not thrive on it and keep their condition throughout the year. On such hills it may be necessary to break the ground in gradually by summer grazing only. I believe that such ground will gradually become rejuvenated, and especially if this process can be assisted by drainage and the application of lime. Such condition, of course, may be due to some kind of mineral deficiency, but I have seen it on a hill where there should not have been any difference in the mineral content of the soil, although in the past that part of the hill had never had cattle on it whilst the other part had. That one condition we may find.
In other hills, of course, we have diseases which appear to be rampant. And there it would not be advisable to try to establish a permanent herd of breeding cows.
These conditions are, perhaps, extreme, so let us consider a normal central Scottish Hill Sheep Farm, of say, 5,000 acres, which carries a stock of 1,000 Blackface ewes. Such a farm may have 50 acres of arable land and another 100 acres of better pasture, then a cross fence with about 4,000 acres of mixed heather grazing above the fence, and the remainder of the area, about 900 acres better quality hill grazing; a considerable portion of marshy ground, spretty ground which is very good for outwintering cattle, who thrive well on it. There may also be a birch wood and some old Scotch fir plantations surrounding it. The ewes will probably be lambed on that part below the cross fence and it may also be used at tupping time for the gimmers. If it is proposed to establish a herd of hardy cattle on this hill, I would suggest starting with the purchase of 100 suitable heifers. Here, of course, you have to go into the market, because you have no foundation stock from which to breed them.
So let us purchase 100 suitable heifers in the month of October. I say October because this will give them a whole winter to become acclimatised whilst they are yeld. By the end of the winter the man in charge, probably the head shepherd-there are two shepherds on the hill-would have seen one or two beasts that did not please him and at the end of the winter he might decide that perhaps 10 per cent. of them had to be cast. He would take the ten out in the month of June and sell them, probably at quite good profit. After purchase these cattle would be put on to the main hill, and there in the months of October, November and December I think we would find that they would spread out in small bunches over the entire area and do very well. There is no reason why they should be brought on to the lower ground until about the middle of January, when they could be given supplementary feeding. This supplementary feeding, I would suggest, should start off by being confined to nothing but oat straw; this oat straw should be fed as early in the morning as possible, to encourage the beasts to spread out over their ground during the day. It is no good feeding in the morning one day and in the afternoon the next and at night the next, because that means that your cows are going to hang around the whole time. Feed them as early as you can in the morning, let them see that they will get no more, and then drive them off and they will become accustomed to working the ground properly. Five lb of straw is quite sufficient for heifers in that condition and they should do well enough on it, so long as the grazing is good with plenty of rough rushy areas.
At the beginning of April you might want to build them up a bit, depending on their condition, when you can give them a similar ration of hay instead of straw and keep them on hay until the grass comes at the end of May. The ground where they would be running might be required for lambing and you might find the shepherd complain that it was too bare to feed the sheep, that there was nothing left for them. We have found that that is entirely wrong. Where you have a bit of ground stocked with cattle in the winter you have the right kind of grass for sheep at least a month earlier, you have milk on your ewes, and although there may seem to be absolutely nothing on that ground, the sheep appear to thrive far better than they do on ground where you have a mass of rotting vegetation held over from the previous summer. I think that is one point in regard to which we are going to have difficulty in establishing cattle on a great number of hills – the opposition by the shepherd to “bare ground”, but in my experience that “bare ground” is the very place to get early milk.
Coming back to our cattle and the treatment they get, I suggest that in early May you put your heifers out to the hill again above the cross fence, and when you come to put the bulls out in June, bring them down below the cross fence, and run them there with the heifers.
Talking of bulls, I know that a lot of people think that we Shorthorn breeders turn out animals that cannot be used for the purpose. Perhaps we do, but if you treat a bull the right way I submit that you can get that bull into condition for hill work by the summer. If you buy a bull at Perth, say in February, put him into a field with a shed and give him turnips and hay, that will bring him into condition in time ; he may not be getting all the other nice things, but even if you do bring him down in condition, start building him up again in May or the middle of April, I am quite satis¬fied that by the middle of June he will be in first-class hard condition to do his work and he will settle his cows. Of course, if you take him home and try to keep him in the same condition that he was in, or if you shut him in a box where he has no exercise and cannot develop, you are in for trouble. The safe thing to do is to buy an old bull that has been on the hill and can do his work under hill conditions, and at the same time have a young bull coming on as a standby. For a herd of about ninety cows I think you would be quite safe, if you had two sound bulls, in getting your cows well settled.
Bulls, I suggest, should be taken in during the first half of August because, quite frankly, I do not like late calves and I do not think the feeders do ; they are not profitable to sell and they are not profitable to buy. The bulls can be run together during the winter, coming in and out, and there should be no trouble.
If during July your inbye grass is running away, take half of your cattle, run them on these inbye fields and rump them down as hard as possible. Hill cattle are always very useful for this, because where ordinary cattle may be very selective in their grazing, hill cattle will eat anything and clean up a field.
In September you can turn the heifers out to the hill again and they can remain there until after the New Year. Then they will come down below the cross fence and you will feed with straw as in your first year until the end of February, when according to their condition and climatic conditions, they should be given a daily ration, fed early morning, of from five to ten lb. of good hay. A lot of people have criticised me in the past for saying that you can bring cows through the winter on 41b of hay per day. I have seen it done. At the same time, I have seen them eat far more than that. The climatic conditions and the conditions on the hill have a great deal of bearing.
Calves will start in mid-March and you should keep on feeding the cows with hay until there is a good flush of grass, because if you stop feeding them too early in spring they will lose their con¬dition and you will be penalised for being too niggardly in spring by having a lot of yeld cows the following year.
As to the time when the cows and calves should be put to the hill, this is a matter upon which no definite statement can be made, but assuming that you have dishorned at the end of May, I suggest that you shift them as high up as you can some time in June ; flies and other things are less troublesome on the higher ground, and the higher you can keep your cattle in the summer the better. If you want to put a bit of bloom on your calves, bring them down to the better grazing half way through August; the milk will flow more readily and your calves will get a bloom.
When it comes to weaning your calves, open all the gates or the cows will do it for you ; if they cannot do it in the normal way they will walk through them. The best way is to load the calves straight into a lorry at a fank and drive them away, and the cows will hang around that fank as being the place where they last saw their offspring. But if you drive the calves off the hill and the cows see you going, they will follow you right down the road.
I believe that heather is important in the diet of a hill cow and that these cattle should have access to it at least for two or three months during the year. Some people believe in bringing their cows into inbye fields during the winter; they think that by putting them on better land they will come through the winter more easily. In my opinion that is wrong. I have seen some twenty Highland cows – some on my own farm near Crieff, where they had a run of 40 acres, they were liberally fed, two of them died and three or four others did not recover till the following summer. Give them as much room as you can and they will come through the winter in far better condition.
Let me say a word on disease. Abortion is the disease that we have to guard against chiefly, because you cannot control it once it gets into a herd of hill cattle. I believe that the only satisfactory way to guard against abortion is to blood test every bovine animal on the farm and so far as your dairy stock is concerned you had better blood test them twice a year and keep on doing it. Be very rigid in your test of every cow that you buy in. It is an enormous loss if you have a herd of 100 cows, good solid eight- to ten-year-old cows that are acclimatised to the hill, to see the whole lot go on the hill and perhaps become useless the year after. For that reason, you have to guard against contact with neighbouring cattle.
Tuberculosis is practically unknown in hill cattle, and I believe that there is a great future for the attestation of such herds. Dairy farmers at the moment cannot buy store cattle if they are attested, as we hope they all will be, and I think we have a big market for the hill cattle if we have them tested. There is a good market for the right kind of stores from clean herds.
I have made only casual reference to the question of labour because I think that with a herd of eighty or ninety cows you do not require any extra labour for the greater part of the year; your shepherds can feed the cattle during the winter as there is very little work to be done among the sheep. At lambing time a boy should be able to do all the feeding that is necessary. As far as calving is concerned, once the beast is over its first calving the less you worry it the better, it can get on quite well after the first year without assistance ; with a heifer it is better during the first year to have some one around so that it does not get into trouble.
On the question of acclimatisation, I think that has a certain bearing on the health of the cattle; once they become established on the hill they are of far greater value than cattle that are perhaps put on to that hill in the middle of their lives. You had far better start off with young heifers, get them established and leave them there for the whole of their lives. There is no doubt that once cattle become acclimatised to the hill they become very much better.
That, I think, is all that I can say; the subject is so large, many different aspects could be discussed, but I hope that what I have said will induce some of you to start a good argument on these questions. We all have so much to learn that a great deal more should be said about them. I have dealt with one subject and I hope we shall have a good discussion.
